I  23*1 


w- 


LUTHER  S.  LIVINGSTON 

1864 •  1914 


1915 


American  Scholar  died  on  'December  24,  1914. 
Self-made,  the  doors  of  opportunity  opened  to  him  a  few 
months  before,  and  with  many  misgivings  he  passed 
through  them.  He  found  himself  among  men  of  recog- 
nized attainments  ^ho,  to  his  surprise,  Welcomed  him 
to  their  assembly  and  conduced  him  to  a  seat  beside  the 
most  honoured.  While  he  ^poas  still  Pondering  how  best 
to  show  his  appreciation  for  their  recognition,  he  died. 


J^UTH€R  S.  ^IVINGSTON 


I  864 


JL/UTHER  S.  LIVINGSTON  was  born  at  Grand 
Rapids,  Michigan,  on  July  7,  1864.  His  mother's 
father,  Luther  Lincoln,  was  a  nature-loving  wander- 
er who  transmitted  an  abiding  fondness  for  the  deep 
woods  and  for  lofty  pines.  From  the  neighbourhood 
of  Taunton,  Massachusetts,  he  took  his  young  wife 
to  Michigan.  They  were  pioneers  on  the  outskirts  of 
what  is  now  Detroit,  and  then  moved  on  to  the  river 
bank  beside  the  rapids,  where  they  were  among  the 
first  to  claim  a  home  site.  Their  daughter  Keziah 


£'.'.*':< 

married  Benjamin  Livingston.  His  father,  Samuel, 
left  Ireland  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  cent- 
ury, and  the  son  reached  the  Michigan  settlement 
by  way  of  western  New  York  and  Canada. 

The  first  money  that  Luther  Samuel  Livingston 
earned,  by  vacation  work  sweeping  after  the  laborers 
on  a  street-paving  contract  undertaken  by  his  fa- 
ther, was  spent  for  a  pair  of  heavy  tramping  shoes 
and  for  a  set  of  Chambers'  Cyclopaedia  of  English  Lit- 
erature. When  he  left  the  high  school  in  1881,  he 
went  to  work  in  a  local  bookshop.  Four  years  later 
he  was  obliged  by  ill  health  to  give  up  regular  in- 
doors employment,  and  spent  the  summer  months 
collecting  butterflies  and  wild  flowers  in  the  fields 
and  swamps  near  Grand  Rapids.  In  the  autumn  he 
secured  a  position  in  another  bookstore,  where  he 
stayed  until  1887,  when  he  went  to  New  York  and 
became  the  shipping  clerk  for  Dodd,  Mead  & 
Company. 

Livingston  never  liked  city  ways,  and  in  1888  he 
took  up  a  plot  of  government  land  at  Melbourne, 
near  the  head  of  navigation  on  the  St.  John's  River 
in  Florida.  The  inspiration  for  this  venture  came 
from  the  books  of  Thoreau.  He  was  ambitious  to 


emulate  the  simple  life  as  expounded  by  the  Con- 
cord seer.  Unluckily  the  Florida  glades  concealed 
no  motherly  neighbours  from  whose  pantry  shelves 
pockets  could  be  stuffed  with  doughnuts,  and  the 
life  proved  too  simple.  After  a  year  of  unremuner- 
ative  grubbing  at  palmetto  roots,  Livingston  re- 
turned to  the  New  York  bookstore. 

In  1891  he  was  invited  by  a  friend  who  had  dis- 
covered his  fondness  for  flowers,  to  visit  the  green- 
houses of  Pitcher  &  Manda  at  Short  Hills,  New 
Jersey.  His  familiarity  with  the  technical  names  of 
the  different  plants  and  accurate  information  about 
unusual  varieties  attracted  the  attention  of  one  of 
the  partners,  who  forthwith  offered  him  a  place  on 
their  staff.  He  was  assigned  the  task  of  compiling 
catalogues.  In  this  work  his  aptitude  for  precise 
statement  and  for  the  clear  differentiation  of  pecu- 
liarities found  ample  scope.  The  printed  catalogues 
compiled  by  him  have  become  classics  among  horti- 
culturists. His  descriptions  set  a  standard  which 
rival  establishments  were  unable  to  attain,  and  they 
have  been  copied  extensively  by  other  firms,  who 
thereby  contributed  to  the  spread  of  his  unrecog- 
nized influence  upon  American  gardening. 


He  was  just  beginning  to  realize  the  opportuni- 
ties for  original  investigation  which  the  making  of 
catalogues  offered,  when  his  employers  sent  him  to 
Colombia  to  colled:  orchids.  During  the  eighteen 
months  he  was  in  South  America,  he  made  three 
trips  to  the  head  of  navigation  on  the  Magdalena 
River,  nine  hundred  miles,  bringing  down  a  thou- 
sand cases  of  Cattleya  Trianae.  An  equal  number 
of  cases  containing  some  of  the  rarest  and  most 
beautiful  orchids  ever  collected  were  transported  in 
canoes  a  distance  of  nearly  two  thousand  miles, 
from  Arauca  down  the  Orinoco  River  to  Bolivar, 
whence  they  were  shipped  to  the  United  States.  He 
also  made  a  collection  of  butterflies  and  bird  skins 
for  his  own  amusement  while  he  was  in  the  interior. 
The  systematic  notebooks  in  which  the  record  of 
this  trip  is  preserved  and  the  delightful  gossipy  let- 
ters to  his  mother  furnish  an  abundant  store  of  gen- 
eral ethnological  and  geographical,  as  well  as  special 
botanical,  information. 

On  April  18,  1893,  ne  wr°te  from  his  camp  on 
a  sand-bar  in  a  stream  which  is  one  of  the  upper 
tributaries  of  the  Orinoco.  In  a  hollow  he  had  found 
a  nest  of  alligator's  eggs.  £As  the  man  started  to 


dig  out  the  eggs  we  heard  the  little  darlings  down 
below  barking  like  puppies.  They  were  just  hatch- 
ing and  several  little  lizards  had  their  snouts  out  of 
the  shells.  We  helped  a  couple  out  and  they  were 
fierce  as  their  mamma  who,  12  or  15  feet  long,  was 
meanwhile  swimming  back  and  forth  with  the  top 
of  her  head  above  water,  in  the  river  in  front.  The 
eggs  were  perhaps  4  inches  long,  ellipsoidal,  and 
with  a  very  delicate  calcareous  shell  which  dropped 
off  almost  when  touched,  leaving  the  thickish 
membrane  behind.  The  young  alligator  was  some- 
thing like  8  inches  long. 

'After  supper  I  smoked  a  cigar  and  swung  in  the 
hammock  looking  at  the  stars  and  thinking  of  home. 
The  new  moon  "holding  the  old  moon  in  its  arms" 
was  just  setting  as  also  was  Orion.  Immediately 
over  me  was  Denabola  the  jewel  in  the  handle  of 
the  "sickle."  In  the  east  the  Southern  Cross  was 
just  rising.  The  men  settled  themselves  to  sleep, 
two  in  hammocks  on  the  sand,  the  others  on  the  top 
of  the  cabin  of  the  boat,  and  I  was  alone,  awake 
there  beside  that  softly  flowing  river  beneath  the 
Southern  Cross.  Now  and  then  were  soft  lightning 
flashes  in  the  west,  and  ever  and  anon  flew  overhead 


some  belated  crane  the  pulsing  sound  of  whose  beat- 
ing wings  came  down  to  me  like  the  whirr  of  the 
feathered  angelic  hosts  in  Eternal  Paradise.  In  this 
happy  and  satisfied  state  of  mind  I  dozed  off  to 
sleep,  but  for  a  few  moments  only,  for  soon  I  was 
rudely  awakened  by  a  not  gentle  rap  on  my  head 
with  a  club  the  size  of  my  arm,  which  raised  a  bump 
half  the  size  of  an  alligator's  egg,  and  I  found  my- 
self on  the  sand.  I  had  dropped  from  Heaven  slap 
upon  old  Mother  Earth.  I  thought  the  mother  al- 
ligator had  come  out  to  revenge  the  death  of  her 
three  children.  But  on  looking  into  the  matter  and 
rubbing  my  head  awhile  I  found  that  what  had  hap- 
pened was  that  one  of  the  posts  of  my  hammock  had 
broken  off  at  the  ground.  I  concluded  to  pass  the 
rest  of  the  night  on  board.  About  2  A.M.  the  cook 
woke  me  with  his  cup  of  coffee  and  I  climbed  out 
on  the  roof  and  lay  down  to  enjoy  the  breeze  of  the 
motion  of  the  boat/ 

The  financial  disturbance  of  1893  upset  the 
market  for  orchids,  and  before  the  end  of  that  year 
Livingston  was  once  more  in  the  book  business.  A 
few  months  with  W.  R.  Benjamin  enabled  him  to 
become  familiar  with  the  trade  in  autographs,  and 


-C-*  --c 

then  he  went  back  to  Dodd,  Mead  &  Company, 
with  whom  he  was  identified  until  his  physical  dis- 
aster in  1912. 

The  New  England  inheritance  led  him  to  make 
possible  for  his  younger  brother  the  college  educa- 
tion which  had  been  denied  himself.  The  economies 
which  this  required  were  among  his  fondest  memo- 
ries. If  the  thought  of  envy  of  his  brother's  brilliant 
career  ever  entered  his  head,  no  outsider  had  a 
chance  to  suspect  that  he  wondered  whether  he 
might  have  done  as  well.  The  generous  recognition 
of  all  that  he  had  done,  and  the  reputation  won  by 
the  use  of  opportunities,  was  the  more  than  satisfac- 
tory reward.  The  wonder  in  Livingston's  own  mind, 
during  the  last  few  months,  was  that  the  chance  for 
a  wider  fame  and  a  more  eminent  position  in  the 
world  of  scholars,  had  come  to  him,  a  book  seller's 
clerk  who  had  never  entered  college. 

In  1898  he  married  Flora  V.  Milner  of  Deer 
Lodge,  Montana,  a  friend  of  his  boyhood.  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Livingston  made  their  home  at  Scarsdale, 
nineteen  miles  north  of  New  York  City.  There  he 
found  three  acres  of  woods,  cliffs,  swamp  and  proper 
soil  for  the  garden  into  which  he  put  the  happiest 


part  of  every  week.  Under  his  wizard  touch,  this 
little  country  home  lot  became  a  botanical  museum. 
Month  by  month  he  added  to  his  treasures  until  he 
was  nearing  the  consummation  of  his  ambition  to 
possess  a  healthy  growing  specimen  of  every  variety 
of  flowering  plant  that  could  be  induced  to  take 
root  in  the  latitude  and  longitude  of  New  York 
City.  There  were  oriental  poppies  of  all  colours,  by 
the  thousands,  iris  from  March  to  July,  rock  plants 
from  all  over  the  world  covering  the  cliffs  and 
ledges,  tulips  in  profusion  of  species.  The { Matilija' 
poppy  from  lower  California  and  Japanese  anemo- 
nes running  wild  were  only  two  of  the  attractions 
which  drew  to  this  little  garden  on  every  Sunday 
a  steadily  widening  group  of  friends.  The  flower- 
ing shrubs  were  overshadowed  by  conifers  from  the 
far  corners  of  the  globe;  Sequoia  gigantea  from  the 
slopes  of  the  Pacific  coast  ranges,  Torreyas  from 
Florida,  Banksian  pines  from  Hudson's  Bay,  deo- 
dars from  India.  The  parting  from  that  garden  with- 
in sight  of  the  reflected  lights  of  Broadway  was  not 
least  among  the  tragedies  of  Livingston's  last  year. 
When  the  members  of  the  firm  of  Dodd,  Mead 
&  Company,  in  1910,  decided  to  devote  their  ener- 


gies  to  the  wholesale  publishing  business,  Robert 
H.  Dodd  entered  into  a  separate  partnership  with 
Livingston  under  the  name  of  Dodd  &  Livingston. 
Livingston's  remarkable  memory  for  minute  de- 
tails and  his  ability  to  recognize  peculiarities  in  vol- 
umes with  which  he  was  unfamiliar  had  long  been 
an  important  asset  which  did  much  to  give  the 
house  its  preeminent  position  among  American 
dealers  in  rare  old  books.  These  qualities  combined 
with  the  instinctive  confidence  which  every  one 
who  dealt  with  him  felt  in  his  frankness  and  sincer- 
ity, gave  the  new  firm  an  unassailable  position.  His 
visit  to  London  in  1911  strengthened  personal 
friendships  with  nearly  every  English  collector  of 
consequence,  and  put  him  in  the  way  to  become 
the  best  known  book  seller  on  either  side  of  the 
Atlantic. 

By  a  curious  fatality,  it  was  on  the  day  the  Titanic 
sank,  April  15,  1912,  that  Livingston  collapsed 
under  his  own  weight,  with  a  broken  thigh,  at  his 
home  in  Scarsdale.  Six  months  before,  he  had  slip- 
ped on  wet  leaves  in  the  garden  and  broken  a  leg 
and  arm,  which  healed  unsatisfactorily.  After  the 
second  accident,  the  doctors  sought  for  the  cause. 


They  found  that  through  some  strange  vagary  of 
his  physical  system,  which  had  been  anaemic  from 
childhood,  the  organs  had  ceased  to  send  lime  to 
the  bones.  No  one  who  saw  him  during  the  months 
that  followed  this  discovery  is  likely  to  forget  the 
brave,  wistful  smile  with  which  he  remarked  that 
he  was  assured  of  lasting  fame,  not  because  of  any- 
thing that  he  had  written,  but  as  an  extraordinary 
medical  phenomenon.  The  medical  people  have 
their  own  names  for  the  things  that  ailed  him,  and 
he  was  of  sufficient  importance,  from  their  point  of 
view,  to  be  transferred  to  the  Rockefeller  Institute 
for  Medical  Research.  There  Dr.  McCrudden  and 
his  collaborators  experimented  with  him  until  treat- 
ment was  found  that  proved  helpful.  The  bones 
showed  stronger  in  the  x-ray  prints,  and  the  doctors 
told  him  that  maybe  some  day  he  might  walk  again. 
When  his  improvement  was  assured,  Mrs.  George 
D.  Widener  asked  him  to  become  the  first  Libra- 
rian of  the  Harry  Elkins  Widener  Collection,  in 
charge  of  the  Memorial  rooms  which  are  the  center 
of  the  great  library  building  at  Harvard  which  per- 
petuates the  memory  of  what  she,  and  Harvard, 
and  book  lovers  everywhere,  lost  when  the  Titanic 
went  down,  v 


The  appointment  was  recognized  by  every  one 
as  the  best  that  could  have  been  made.  The  business 
acquaintanceship  between  the  book  seller  and  the 
collector  began  soon  after  Harry  Widener  gradu- 
ated from  Harvard.  It  quickly  ripened  into  warm 
personal  friendship.  'He  loved  you,  Mr.  Living- 
ston, and  has  talked  to  me  so  often  of  your  know- 
ledge and  the  help  you  were  to  him  in  advising  him 
about  books/  wrote  the  mother,  in  her  first  letter 
referring  to  the  plans  for  the  Memorial.  *  Hundreds 
of  times  he  has  told  me,  that  when  he  could  afford 
it,  he  would  love  to  have  you  for  his  private  libra- 
rian. You  were  so  congenial  with  him  and  he  loved 
working  with  you/ 

The  knowledge  that  the  doctors  expected  him  to 
live,  and  that  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  he  was  to 
have  leisure  and  opportunity  to  do  the  things  which 
he  knew,  as  well  as  any  one,  that  he  could  do  better 
than  anybody  else,  gave  Livingston  the  interest  in 
living  which  was  worth  more  than  all  the  medicines.  . 
He  planned  to  spend  the  summer  of  1914  on  the 
Massachusetts  North  Shore,  and  stopped  in  Bos- 
ton on  the  way,  to  break  the  journey  and  to  visit 
the  half-finished  Widener  Memorial  building.  He 


chanced  to  be  in  Cambridge  during  Commence- 
ment week,  and  Mr.  Lane  invited  him  to  attend  the 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  dinner.  He  went  in  his  wheeled 
chair,  and  to  his  surprise,  consternation  almost,  for 
he  knew  of  Harvard  mostly  by  tradition,  he  found 
that  he  was  the  only  person  who  was  surprised  at 
his  being  placed  among  the  guests  at  the  speakers* 
table.  This  was  the  first  of  many  incidents  which 
made  the  closing  months  of  his  life  happier  than  he 
had  imagined  possible.  He  found  himself  more  than 
welcomed  by  people  whose  names  he  knew  and 
honoured.  As  these  men  and  women  came  to  see 
him,  at  first  through  neighbourly  sympathy,  their 
respect  for  his  ability  rapidly  developed  to  admi- 
ration for  his  bravery  and  love  for  one  of  the  sweet- 
est natures  this  world  has  ever  known. 

During  the  summer  at  Pigeon  Cove,  it  became 
evident  that  the  doctors,  in  fighting  to  restore  the 
strength  to  his  bones,  had  drawn  too  heavily  upon 
the  rest  of  his  weakened  system.  He  did  not  die,  be- 
cause of  an  unalterable  determination  to  live  until 
he  had  justified  the  faith  and  repaid  the  kindnesses 
of  his  old  and  new  friends.  He  went  to  a  Boston 
hospital  for  observation,  and  then  settled  in  his  bed 


at  Cambridge  to  prolong  the  fight,  on  his  nerve, 
with  a  superb  courage,  after  the  physical  machine 
was  ready  to  stop.  The  doctors  did  what  they  could, 
and  he  did  more,  but  the  odds  were  all  against  him. 
Life  went  out  on  the  morning  of  December  24. 

The  Corporation  of  Harvard  University  ap- 
pointed him  Librarian  of  the  Harry  ElkinsWidener 
Collection  at  its  meeting  on  November  30,  1914. 
Four  weeks  later  he  was  buried  from  Appleton 
Chapel,  by  the  College  Preacher.  The  body  rests  at 
Mount  Auburn,  under  a  beautiful  pine  tree. 


LIVINGSTON'S  first  publication  was  an  anonymous 
pamphlet  entitled  'Chrysanthemums/  which  was 
issued  by  his  employers,  Pitcher  &  Manda,  at  Short 
Hills  in  1 893.  It  was  a  separate  reprint  from  a  por- 
tion of  their  regular  catalogue  for  the  autumn  of  that 
year.  This  brochure  attracted  considerable  attention 
at  the  time  among  horticulturists,  and  it  has  pro- 


vided  the  substance  and  much  of  the  phraseology 
for  articles  on  that  plant  printed  since  its  appearance. 

Most  of  his  bibliographical  work  was  done  with 
books  which  were  in  his  hands  pending  their  sale 
by  Dodd,  Mead  &  Company.  The  unusual  value 
of  the  catalogues  issued  by  that  house  was  recog- 
nized widely  for  some  time  before  bookmen  who 
were  not  conversant  with  the  New  York  trade  gos- 
sip became  aware  of  Livingston's  part  in  them.  The 
extent  to  which  his  notes  on  rare  volumes  and  pe- 
culiar editions  have  been  copied  by  other  book  sel- 
lers is  the  convincing  tribute  to  the  thoroughness 
with  which  he  exhausted  each  subject  that  he  under- 
took to  examine. 

Many  of  the  choicest  books  that  changed  hands 
during  the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  century 
became  the  property  of  Elihu  Dwight  Church  of 
Brooklyn.  When  his  library  began  to  surpass  other 
private  collections  of  Americana  and  of  English  lit- 
erature, Mr.  Church  asked  Livingston  to  make  a 
printed  catalogue  of  his  books.  Much  of  the  work 
of  collating  as  well  as  the  preparation  of  historical 
and  bibliographical  notes  had  been  done  before  the 
books  were  sold  to  Mr.  Church,  but  this  material 


had  to  be  revised  and  verified,  and  each  volume 
re-examined  for  minute  peculiarities.  Livingston 
drew  up  the  general  plan  for  the  catalogue  and  all 
the  models  for  collations,  descriptions  and  notes.  It 
soon  became  evident  that  the  details  of  the  cata- 
logue were  taking  time  that  he  might  better  employ 
on  the  current  work  of  the  business.  The  editorial 
labour  was  therefore  turned  over  in  November, 
1901,  to  George  Watson  Cole,  by  whom  it  was  car- 
ried through  to  a  successful  completion  in  1909. 
Livingston  took  a  keen  interest  in  the  progress  of 
the  work,  reading  all  the  proofs  with  great  care,  and 
the  decision  on  questions  of  policy  and  arrangement 
ordinarily  rested  with  him. 

A  number  of  his  trade  catalogues  developed  into 
regular  bibliographies.  It  was  thoroughly  character- 
istic of  his  attitude  toward  his  work,  that  when  he 
described  any  set  of  books,  for  sale,  he  pointed  out 
the  titles  which  were  not  included,  with  the  same 
care  that  he  gave  to  describing  the  choicest  treasures 
in  the  offering. 

Livingston's  name  first  appeared  on  a  title-page 
on  the  first  volume  of 'American  Book  Prices  Cur- 
rent/ which  was  published  in  1895.  The  work  of 


compiling  the  material  for  this  volume  was  done 
entirely  by  him.  He  was  assisted  in  the  work  for 
the  succeeding  volumes  by  Miss  Ida  Stewart  and  by 
Miss  C.  E.  Dyett,  who  gradually  took  almost  entire 
charge  of  the  routine  compilation  and  the  prepara- 
tion of  copy  for  the  printer. 

The  mass  of  information  contained  in  the  first 
ten  volumes  of  this  series  was  sifted  together,  re- 
arranged in  alphabetical  order  and  combined  with 
the  important  part  of  the  English  publication  with 
the  same  title,  in  the  four  volumes,  'Auction  Prices 
of  Books,'  published  in  1905. 

From  1898  to  1901  he  was  a  regular  contributor 
to  'The  Bookman.  Most  of  his  articles  appeared  under 
the  department  headings,  'The  Book  Hunter'  and 
'The  Book  Mart.'  He  also  wrote  two  series  on 
'The  First  Books  of  some  American  Authors'  and 
'The  First  Books  of  some  English  Authors.'  A  few 
of  these  were  reprinted  in  separateform.  Stevenson's 
'An  Object  of  Pity,  or  The  Man  Haggard,' was  pre- 
pared for  publication  in  this  magazine  but  a  change 
in  editorial  policy  led  to  the  decision  not  to  use  it, 
after  it  was  in  type,  and  so  it  was  issued  independ- 
ently in  a  limited  edition. 


•c  •  •?  •  -c 

He  was  an  aftive  member  of  the  group  that  tried 
to  establish  The  bibliographer  as  the  American  or- 
gan for  those  interested  in  bookish  technicalities. 
During  1902  and  1903  he  prepared  for  it  Facsimile 
reprints  of  two  important  early  American  tracts  and 
of  the  first  edition  of  Milton's  £omus.  Eacn  of  these 
was  reissued  in  separate  form.  He  also  edited  fac- 
similes of  a  rare  German  edition  of  the  Vespucius 
Voyages  and  of  the  first  edition  of  Bacon's  Essaies. 
He  planned  to  republish  a  number  of  other  rare 
tracts  of  this  character,  in  connection  with  his  work 
at  Harvard.  The  first  of  these,  (Captain  John  Smith's 
(Circular  or^Prospeffus  of  his  Qener  all  Historic  >  was  in 
type  before  he  died,  and  has  been  issued,  as  he  in- 
tended, by  Mrs.  Livingston. 

In  1905  he  began  to  contribute  regularly  to  the 
3\(ew  York  Evening  'Post  and  The  U^ation^  under  the 
heading  'News  for  Bibliophiles/  upon  such  sub- 
jects as  c  Shakespeare  Quartos/ 'The  Most  Valuable 
American  Printed  Book/  'The  Van  Antwerp  Lib- 
rary/ 'A  New  Manuscript  of  Poe/  'Early  Books 
about  New  Jersey/  and  'A  New  Old-Book  Firm/ 
A  few  articles  of  the  same  character  were  written  for 
'The  Bibliographer'  column  of  the  Boston  Evening 


Transcript.  The  Ration  articles  on  cThe  Robert 
Hoe  Library,' ' Beverly  Chew  and  his  Books'  and 
'The  Harry  Elkins  Widener  Stevenson  Collection' 
were  reprinted  in  pamphlet  form. 

The  trade  catalogues  of  sets  of  Kipling  and  Ten- 
nyson proved  so  helpful  to  collectors  that  he  was 
induced  to  prepare  similar  descriptions  of  the  first 
editions  of  Pope,  Mark  Twain,  Meredith  and 
Swinburne.  These  were  privately  printed  for  the 
owners  of  sets  of  books  by  these  authors,  which 
Livingston  had  been  largely  instrumental  in  enlarg- 
ing. These  led  naturally  to  his  assuming  the  task  of 
completing  cThe  Chamberlain  Bibliographies'  of 
Longfellow  and  Lowell,  which  were  based  on  the 
researches  and  notes  of  Jacob  Chester  Chamberlain 
of  New  York  City,  and  printed  by  Mrs.  Chamber- 
lain as  a  memorial  of  his  absorbing  interest  in 
American  authors. 

Livingston's  appreciation  of  the  point  of  view  of 
scholars  as  well  as  that  of  book  collectors  had  an 
opportunity  for  expression  in  the  '  Bibliography 
of  Charles  and  Mary  Lamb,'  printed  in  1903  for 
J.  A.  Spoor  of  Chicago.  Here  also  he  demonstrated 
his  ability  to  treat  the  dryest  details  of  bibliography 


in  such  a  manner  as  to  bring  out  their  importance 
to  the  history  of  literature,  and  his  skill  in  making 
a  readable  presentation  of  such  minutiae.  These 
characteristics,  the  marks  of  genuine  scholarship, 
developed  rapidly  during  the  ensuing  decade.  Self- 
educated,  and  always  a  student,  he  wrote  carefully, 
as  to  expression  as  well  as  facts,  and  his  style,  as  he 
came  to  write  more  easily,  reflected  the  accuracy  of  his 
instincts,  lightened  by  the  buoyancy  of  his  nature. 
The  satisfactory  appearance  of  Livingston's  last, 
and  most  important,  publication  gladdened  the  fi- 
nal month  of  his  life.  This  volume  grew  out  of  a  plan 
to  write  a  description  of  a  single  volume  belonging 
to  one  of  his  best  friends.  Under  the  incentive  of 
a  request  from  the  publication  committee  of  the 
Grolier  Club,  of  New  York,  it  was  expanded  into 
an  exhaustive  study  of '  Franklin  and  his  Press  at 
Passy.'  His  instinct  for  the  meaning  of  the  half- 
hidden  evidence  of  the  physical  makeup  of  a  pam- 
phlet, worked  just  as  surely  when  applied  to  the 
interpretation  of  written  documents.  His  ingrained 
habit  of  refusing  to  form  an  opinion  or  to  state  his 
conclusions  as  long  as  the  evidence  seemed  incom- 
plete, maintained  his  interest  in  researches  long  after 


his  associates  had  decided  that  there  was  nothing 
left  to  be  discovered.  He  would  not  begin  to  write 
until  he  knew  what  he  wanted  to  say.  The  conse- 
quence was  that  when  he  wrote,  he  expressed  himself 
confidently  and  readably.  The  volume  on  Franklin 
and  his  French  printing  press  will  long  stand  as  the 
entirely  adequate  example  of  what  a  bibliographical 
investigation  ought  to  produce. 


Written  for,  and  first  printed  in,  the  'Papers  of  the 
'Bibliographical  Society  of  America. 

Two  hundred  copies  printed  at  the  ^Montague  'Press 
1915. 


